What Is Scrum?

Scrum is a framework that was originally designed for software project management. It helps you in achieving your project goal by heavily concentrating on teamwork and transparency. The premise behind scrum is similar to other agile frameworks, which is to deliver business value fast and regularly.

Although scrum has been designed for software development, it has found its applications in all types of industries and teams.

It has proved to serve higher productivity, deliver better results, and superior quality software. Talking about the roles – there are three key roles in Scrum that are pretty straight forward but are critical to get right.

Scrum Roles

1. Product Owner

This is the person responsible for product features, roadmap and ultimately the vision, both short term, and long term.

The role of the product owner is much more visionary and strategic than some may think. He or she needs to understand the product that will ultimately get delivered for the market, but also release the key features delivering value while moving closer to the end goal.

2. Scrum Master

This is the person who is responsible for team health. He makes sure the team follows the best agile development practices and guides them on their constant improvement journey.

For anyone who is driven by process improvement and neverending strive for perfection, starting with a scrum alliance certified scrum master course is a great way to kick off your agile career path.

Surely, it is challenging and full of issues that would need to be resolved on a regular basis, but it is exceptionally rewarding at the same time to see positive results and improvement in the software delivery speed and quality.

He is always on guard and is looking for all the new updates. He is always guiding his team that how they can improve their quality and is constantly giving them new updates. He is also responsible for the issues that arise during the development process and he helps his team out.

There are certain responsibilities of the scrum master.

He organizes multiple training sessions so that his team can learn more. He is responsible for keeping the team motivated as well so that they produce good results. He keeps working in a good flow so that no one gets off track.

3. Scrum Team:

These are the people who are the real engineers behind the software. They are the ones who make the software or the product. They are also responsible for the quality of the product.

Scrum Lifecycle

1. Product Backlog

This is the basic outline of the work for which the team is responsible to complete that work in a certain period of time. The product owner is the one who is responsible for all the backlogs and puts them in priority according to the need.

If there are any changes, or if something is added in the backlog then it is his responsibility again to change the schedule according to the changes.

2. Sprint

Scrum team works in small time frames that are known as sprints. They are of different variations. Some are known as short sprints that are only for one week. Some are long that long sprints that are for one month.

There is no break between the sprints. They are continuous and this helps in steady production and quality,

After every sprint, the team is responsible to provide a report. In the report, they have to inform whether they have achieved the target or not. The teams have to collaborate with each other in order to complete the sprint.

They also have to perform certain tests so that they can show that it is complete and it is working.

3. Repetition, learning, and Improvement

This complete process of sprints is repeated until and unless the project is completed. All the sprints are planned and are done within a certain period of time. While the sprints are being executed the product owner is maintaining the backlogs and is looking for the things that can be used in the following sprint.

With the help of these procedures, all the new members of the team are given equal opportunities to learn and grow.

The main reason Scrum is the most popular agile framework these days is that it delivers great results with minimal overheads. It represents a relatively simple process, improves team engagement and has an extremely high return on investment over time.